Cherished traditions are what keep a family together. Easter is a wonderful time to celebrate family, create lifelong memories, and build on those traditions. Here are 20 fun ways for your family to start and carry on some special family times for years to come.
1. Plant an Easter Garden
It's no secret that Easter ushers in the arrival of spring. Brighten your yard with an array of blooming plants. Consider pansies, tulips, marigolds, and petunias.
2. Egg Time Machine
Have your kid write a letter to him or herself that can be placed inside a plastic egg to open next year on Easter. Your child can read about what they were thinking and doing when they were a year younger. It's a fun way to read how they have grown in a year.
3. Decorate an Easter Egg Tree
Make a trip to the craft store and purchase some foam or plastic eggs and decorations. This is a fun activity and lets the kids get creative. Attach a matching-colored ribbon to each egg and hang it from a live or artificial tree.
4. Journey to Easter through Scripture
Easter is a deeply religious holiday for many, packed with significance in the resurrection of Christ. Research related scripture that can be shared throughout the weeks leading up to the holiday that tells the story of Easter.
5. Gather Round the Table
Many families have a big Easter brunch or dinner, often featuring ham as the main course. Coming together over a grand meal provides families a time for fun, food, and fellowship. Inviting extended family members will bring generations together.
6. Baking, and More Baking
Put an apron on and break out the mixing bowls! Bunny, chick, or egg-shaped cookies are perfect shapes to bake and decorate for this holiday. Feeling ambitious? Try an annual bunny shaped cake decorated with icing, coconut, and candies. Go traditional and serve hot cross buns on Good Friday; they fill the kitchen with spicy, sweet, and fruity aromas!
7. Observe Lent
Lent is a season leading up to Easter where some may choose to "give up" something they treasure as a reminder of the 40 days of praying and fasting observed by Christ. Others may take on something new as a challenge - an act of service or a healthy new habit to work into each day.
8. Attend an Easter Parade
Many cities offer Easter parades on Easter Sunday or a day around Easter. Have kids put on an Easter hat, hit the streets, and watch the excitement. Marching bands, colorful floats, and fire trucks are often the highlights for little ones.
9. Decorate Easter Eggs
A tried and true tradition! Dipping eggs in a brightly colored dye and watching it take hold is a delightful experience for kids of all ages. Decorate with glitter, paint, and stickers and use them to decorate the house or Easter baskets. If you want to up the ante, plan an Easter egg decorating competition, complete with prizes, in your neighborhood!
10. Egg Relay Race
After the fun of decorating Easter eggs, give them a second act by using them as the focal point in an egg relay race. Divide participants up into teams. Give every team a hard-boiled egg and a spoon. Blow the whistle and the players balance an egg on the spoon while walking or running to a given point and back and then hand off to the next team member. The first team to finish wins the game.
11. Shell Crack Game
Here's a great Easter game to play year after year! This time each person gets his own hard-boiled Easter egg and pairs up with one other participant. The contest is to have each pair smash the small ends of their eggs together. The person with the unbroken shell advances to the next round where they pair up and do it again. The one who has the last uncracked egg wins.
12. Easter Basket Scavenger Hunt
Instead of just placing the Easter Basket out on Easter morning, add a fun twist with a scavenger hunt! For little ones, draw a map with picture clues. For older children, use written clues. For active ones, let them hop to it by placing an Easter Bunny footprint trail on the floor that will lead them to their basket.
13. Treats for the Easter Bunny
This tradition is similar to leaving cookies and milk for Santa but make it a rabbit-friendly treat. Put carrots and water out before bedtime.
14. Plant a Jellybean Garden
Plant a handful of jellybeans in the dirt outside the night before. Replace each one with a lollipop while the little one’s sleep. In the morning, eyes will grow wide as they see each jellybean has grown into a magical lollipop treat!
15. Egg the Neighbors
Spread Easter joy by egging the neighbors with an Easter basket filled with goodies. Leave the basket on their front porch and ring the doorbell before running back home. Make sure the basket contains a "You have been egged" sign and maybe a clue about your family to help them guess who left it. This is one kind of egging your neighbors won't mind.
16. Easter Basket Puzzle Hunt
Start with a white, blank puzzle (you can buy one at a craft store) with pieces small enough to fit inside plastic eggs. With the puzzle still together, write a message about where their Easter basket is hidden. Then, break up the pieces and divide between the eggs. After all the eggs are found, the children will have to put the puzzle together to find the location of their Easter basket.
17. New Easter Clothes
Having new clothes for Easter is deeply rooted in European customs and led to the same practice here in America. Wearing a brand-new outfit for Easter Sunday has become one of the most commonly celebrated traditions for families.
18. Resurrection Eggs
Explain the Resurrection story in an interactive way to your children by using 12 numbered colorful plastic eggs. Each egg contains a small object that tells a part of the story of Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. Use items such as donkeys, money, and swords. Hide the 12 eggs in your home or yard. Once your children have found all the eggs, gather everyone around, and open the eggs in numbered order as you read about the Resurrection story.
19. Attend Easter Service at Church
For many families, Easter wouldn't be complete without attending a worship service at their church. Some churches host an early sunrise service and others hold a Saturday night Easter vigil.
20. Egg Rolling
In many towns, egg rolling is an important part of the Easter tradition that usually takes place on Easter Monday. Decorated, hard-boiled eggs are rolled down a hill to see which egg can go furthest without breaking.
With these fun ideas, your family will have many meaningful traditions to look forward to each year. Enjoy the season!
by Sara Kendall
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